A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,64

he were filleting a giant fish.

The wyrm’s jaws closed around Cullen’s head and shoulders, but it was dying, its strength deserting it, the power in its jaws fading. Teeth locked around Cullen, scraping on his skin, but not piercing much deeper than that. The wyrm collapsed in an explosion of blood and slime, dragging Cullen down, burying him in a mountain of its entrails.

An earth-shaking roaring grabbed their attention, Drem looking to see Hammer and the white bear clamping jaws into another wyrm, both of them shaking their muscled necks, tugging the wyrm in two directions. There was a tearing sound as they chewed and tore the creature in half.

The last surviving wyrm uncoiled itself from the white bear’s neck and wove unsteadily from the glade, disappearing through foliage into the cover of woodland in half a heartbeat.

The white bear lifted its head and roared, spittle flying, the ground quaking. It took a staggering step after its fleeing attacker, then a shudder rippled through its body and its front legs collapsed. It toppled onto its side, its chest rising and falling in short, shallow gasps.

“Help… me,” a muffled voice called.

Cullen!

Drem and Keld ran to the pile of dead wyrm, heaved its lifeless bulk away to reveal Cullen buried in a heap of offal, slime and putrescence.

Cullen sat up, looked at Drem, wiped wyrm slime from his face. Spat more of it up. Retched. There was no grin from him now.

“Drem, a question.” Cullen spat out more slime. “Why the hell would you choose to live out here?”

Drem stared at Cullen, started to chuckle, looked at Keld, who laughed, too, and then Drem was throwing his head back and laughing from the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t laughed in a long while, and especially not like this, a deep, uncontrolled laughter that shook his core, rattled his bones and made his jaw ache.

“Well,” he said, cuffing tears away when he could finally draw breath. “At least things can’t get any worse.”

“Can they not?” Cullen said, eyes drifting up.

Drem followed his gaze, and saw a black silhouette high above them, framed against the luminous glow of snow clouds.

A black silhouette with wide, bat-like wings.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

RIV

Kol poured Riv a cup of wine.

I hate it here.

They were sitting in Kol’s chambers, situated in a tower high above Drassil’s Great Hall. Not too long ago it had been Israfil’s chambers, and Riv could still see the bloodstains upon the flagstoned floor.

It is a constant reminder of why I hate Kol. My mo–, no, my grandmother Dalmae died in these chambers. And Kol insists that I stay here, still, when all I want is to return to my siste–, no, my mother’s barracks.

Her head was still spinning with the changes in her life. Kol and his deeds were ever-present in her head and heart, a constant test of her self-control. Because her anger was still there, a swirling tornado in the pit of her belly that threatened to drag her into its violent grip.

She knew where that always ended.

Blood and violence.

And she could not allow that to happen, for Vald and Jost’s sake.

For Bleda’s sake.

And Kol is my father. She stared at him, a mixture of revulsion and fascination shifting through her.

A tall, high-arched window let in gusts of cold air, though a Ben-Elim stood before it, jet-black hair braided and tied at the neck.

Ben-Elim do not only guard doors. An attack is just as likely to come through a window as through a door.

“I think that went quite well,” Kol said, pouring wine for Aphra and Lorina as well. He was talking about the meeting yesterday in the Great Hall, as this was the first time they had all met since then.

“Before we drink,” Kol said, “we need something to toast.”

Other than me being still alive, Riv thought.

“I remember my friends and reward loyalty,” Kol said. “And as I’m in the mood for making changes, you two are now promoted.” He raised his cup to Aphra and Lorina. “You are now my two high captains of the White-Wings. Five hundred swords for each of you.”

Riv blinked at that. The White-Wings numbered in total around ten thousand strong. They had never had high captains, had always been divided into hundreds. Riv had never thought twice of it before, but now she found herself questioning everything, and in hindsight considered the demarcation of the White-Wings into comparatively small groups of a hundred as another way that the Ben-Elim had maintained their control. Drassil’s garrison was traditionally